


Falling Faster Than These Fucking Raindrops

by Writing_will_be_my_death



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Attempted Suicide, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kisses, Love Confessions, Lusus death, M/M, Second Kiss, Trans Character, happy end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 15:09:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15821424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_will_be_my_death/pseuds/Writing_will_be_my_death
Summary: Karkat can’t stand living like this any longer, and plans to be falling faster than these fucking raindrops before the sun rises.Unfortunately, a passerby in a car intervenes.





	Falling Faster Than These Fucking Raindrops

**Author's Note:**

> :D hope y’all enjoy

It’s the middle of the night. Rain pours heavily from above, hitting the bridge and creating a comforting white noise. You feel at peace here, leaning over the railing, and looking at the jagged rocks below. You just need to hop over, and it would all be over.

It isn’t like you’re going to be missed, anyway. Your lusus is incredibly sick, he’ll be dead pretty soon. Most of your friends from elementary school went to a different high school, and even those that didn’t hardly ever speak to you anymore. 

The last time you spoke to someone of your own free will was over the summer. It’s April now. 

The only one who does talk to you is this guy named Dave Strider, and you’re not gonna lie, you do have a bit of a crush on him. Regardless, he only has stupid and occasionally rude comments to say to you, and you are too nervous to start a conversation with him. It’s not even one of those easy single quadrant crushes, it’s a mishy-mashy one that smears all of them together.

It’s your last year of high school as well, and you don’t think you made it into any of your colleges. Not like you had an actual plan for life, anyway. After all, your adult molt didn’t make you as tall as other trolls, about as tall as most humans, yet you still got a similar amount of fat. 

You’re stalling.

If this were Alternia, you’d have been killed the moment your cherry red grub-self hatched. Instead, you’re left to do the job yourself here on Earth, once you realized it was something that needed to be done. 

As you hoist yourself up onto the barrier, you hear a car pass behind you. If that person saw you, they’d hopefully be the last to see you alive. Chances are, though, they didn’t even notice you.

You steady your feet onto the ledge beyond the barrier, and hear a car door open and close behind you.

“Karkat?” Someone calls out, in both concern and confusion. They sound like Dave.

You don’t answer them.

“Karkat, what the hell? You could fall,” the person continues, and grabs your left arm. You turn to face them, intending to yell at them, to see that it is Dave, he barely comes up to your shoulder. Honestly though, he looks fucking beautiful standing there in the rain.

“Why the fuck would you care?” You attempt to snarl at him. It comes out much more pathetic than you wanted.

“Why the fuck wouldn’t I?” He counters, and continues before you can interrupt, “seriously bro, get on this side of the barrier.” He tugs lightly at your arm.

“No, fuck you, let me fucking go!” You yell at him.

“No, bro. The rocks are really fucking sharp down there and I would very much like it if you stayed alive, okay?” 

“Well maybe I would like it if I wasn’t alive!”

Dave freezes. Shit, you weren’t supposed to tell anyone that. Everyone was just supposed to forget about you, until one day your body was found and was unidentifiable because you were so insignificant during your time alive.

You weren’t supposed to spill your desire to die to your crush.

Dave’s free hand moves to your right side, and he pulls you back onto the pavement of the bridge. You land on your left side with a small yelp, almost on top of Dave. You had no idea he was that strong.

“What the fuck, Strider?” You scream as you sit up.

He’s still holding onto you, only shifting so he’s hugging your front. The contact is… nice. Really nice, especially since it’s Dave.

“Are you playing some sort of fucking game? Just going around, fucking with people's lives?” You continue, “You and your and your bulge chafing shades, always just fucking with other people’s lives, with my life-”

“You’re not allowed to die!” He yells. His voice sounds like he’s been crying, and you suddenly become hyper aware of the rain hitting your back.

He grips you tighter, like you’ll vanish if he doesn’t. You’re not sure what his comment means. You don’t think there are any laws about killing yourself, and you’re not in any group projects.

“You, you can’t,” He continues, “it, no! You can’t! I don’t- I couldn’t- You, you, you can’t! I won’t let you!” 

“Why the fuck not?” You counter.

“Because…!” He lets go of you and steps back before grabbing the collar of your shirt, pulling you down, and kissing you.

Uh.

Okay.

He stops kissing you before you can come to your senses and kiss him back. He moves his hands from the collar of your shirt to the upper part of your arms.

“I know I’m a fucking idiot who doesn’t know how to talk to people,” Dave says, “but god dammit I’m doing my fucking best. I thought maybe if I joked around with you I could get you to laugh or be happy or something. Obviously I was wrong.”

You don’t know how to answer that. Dave notices.

“C’mon,” he continues, “let’s get you home.”

He grabs you right hand with his left, and leads you over to his beat up red sedan. You hesitate sit in the passenger seat, not wanting to get it wet, but Dave urges you to get in, so you do. 

“So, where do you live?” Dave asks as he sits in the driver’s seat.

“612, Prospit circle,” you reply.

The drive is silent, and you feel incredibly awkward. Does Dave actually like you that way? Or was that kiss just so you wouldn’t fight him off anymore? Why did he stop in the first place? You wish you could see the emotions his eyes would display.

You’re so lost in thought that you don’t even notice when Dave pulls into your driveway.

“Dude, we’re here,” Dave says, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“Oh, well, thanks for driving me,” You say, and get out of Dave’s car.

You plan on running up into your respite block and crying about how pathetic Dave must think you are, after seeing you almost kill yourself and then having to drive you back to your hive. Not to mention he had to kiss you to get you to stop arguing with him.

Well, that was your plan. Things change when Dave gets out too.

“What the fuck are you doing, it’s still raining, dipshit,” you tell him.

“Bro, you think I’m just gonna let you fuck off and do your own thing all alone after you- when you almost-” his voice sounds broken, and a bit offended.

“Look, you probably have people waiting for you wherever the fuck you live, okay?” People more important than me, you don’t add.

“I mean, no, actually. Bro told me I wasn’t allowed in the apartment for the rest of the weekend, so I was hoping to couch surf around,” he says.

“Uh,” you are a master of words. It’s you. “Okay, you can stay here, as long as you need, I guess.”

You stumble to the entrance of your hive, still in shock of learning that Dave basically just got kicked out of his own hive. 

When you finally open your door, you are relieved to hear your lusus wheezing in the living block. He’s not doing so well, but at least he’s alive. You don’t know what you’d have done if he had died while you were gone.

“Hey bro, where’s the bathroom?” Dave asks after he shuts the door.

“First door on the left wall of the living block,” you reply.

He nods in response and jogs over to where you said. 

You head over to your lusus, who is lying behind your couch. He hasn’t been able to sit up for days, let alone walk. You sit down next to his head, and he huffs air at you. It’s how he shows affection now.

You gently pet the top of his head, carefully of your lusus’s dry reddish-white exoskeleton that began flaking off a few months ago. Inevitably, more is always falling off. You aren’t sure if it hurts him or not, but you hope it doesn’t.

You hope he lasts a little while longer.

Dave sits down next to you, you hadn’t noticed he left the ablution block, and your lusus huffs air at him. Huh. You don’t notice the wet piece of cloth he puts in his lap.

“Is it a bad thing that your lusus just huffed at me? Should I be concerned for my safety here?” Dave asks. It’s true that huffing is usually hostile.

“No, he huffs at people he likes,” you reply, not really in the mood to go on a long explanation if Dave doesn’t want it.

“Can I pet him?” Dave asks hesitantly.

“Yeah, just, uh,” fuck, you don’t want your lusus to be hurt but he seems to enjoy light petting, “be soft, gentle and fuck that you usually aren’t.”

Surprisingly, Dave manages to pet your lusus in a way that doesn’t look painful. The fact that Dave can actually be gentle when the situation calls for it… only makes your crush on him bigger. Fuck.

“His… skin stuff is flaking off. Is that normal?” Dave asks.

“No,” you reply solemnly, “he’s sick.”

“Oh,” Dave pauses, “well I hope he gets better soon.”

“He won’t. He’s dying.”

There’s now a hand on your shoulder, and when you look over at Dave you see that he’s stopped petting your lusus to comfort you. He’s even taken his shades off, and the amount of pure care and comfort and emotion in his beautiful eyes just makes you want to cry.

He seems like he cares so much about you, and yet you can’t figure out why he does.

You can feel tears brimming in your eyes, and you blink them back. You smile at Dave, his comfort his appreciated. Very much.

“Thanks,” you say, just as your lusus goes completely limp and stops breathing.

You snap back to looking at your lusus, and gently shake him, trying to wake him up. You poke at his teeth, his spikes, and eventually even the flatter parts of his exoskeleton just to get any reaction out of him. Nothing works. The tears you were holding back, and you feel like you should scream and yell and thrash and throw a Vantas Shitfit™️.

But you don’t want to. You’re too tired.

You slump in on yourself, and let yourself cry. You aren’t a pretty crier. There’s snot on your face, and you’re hiccuping and whining and you’re still wet from outside, but that doesn’t stop Dave from hugging you.

At this point you’re sobbing, but Dave doesn’t care. He actually brings up a palm to your face and paps you, and then proceeds to not only pap you, but also shoosh you. He’s basically acting like a stand-in moirail, and he’s a damn good one too. Gamzee probably would’ve just told you to drink some faygo or something.

The shooshing and papping doesn’t stop you from crying, it actually makes you cry more, but it makes everything less painful. The whole point of it is to make you feel safe, and if it’s safe enough to cry without judgement, it’s safe to do anything.

You’re clinging to Dave like a grub to its lusus, because he makes you feel safe.

An hour or so later, you’ve finally calmed down enough to call CareServices to dispose of your lusus’s body. They’re going to cremate his body and give the ashes back to you, it’s the closest way to preserve his body without literally just keeping it around.

They arrive minutes later, and before you know it, it’s just you and Dave in your hive. You’re both relatively dry by this point.

“How you holding up?” Dave asks.

You shrug. “Tired,” you reply, and while you are a little sleepy, you’re mostly just tired of things happening.

“Yeah,” Dave replies, “Me too,” he holds your hand, and it’s clear that he knows what you mean.

You look at him, glad to see that his shades are still off. It’s incredible how much emotion they show. That’s when you notice the piece of cloth he’s holding.

“What’s that?” You ask him, you want to know more about him.

“What, this?” Dave replies, holding up the cloth. Now that you get a better look, it appears to be some sort of tank top.

“Yeah, that.”

“It’s uh, it’s a binder, bro,” his voice is quick and nervous, like he’s afraid of what you think.

A binder, isn’t that what certain humans used when they didn’t want people to know they have rumplespheres? You think so, and you’re pretty sure they’re was more to it, but you aren’t going to press it. Dave seems pretty uncomfortable.

“Oh, ok,” you reply, and Dave visibly relaxes.

You and Dave are still holding hands. It’s really nice, you don’t ever want to let go. But, you are getting very sleepy, and after everything that’s happened, you should probably sleep.

“We should go to bed,” you say.

“Yeah, probably,” Dave replies, “unfortunately, I have exactly jack shit to wear, since I wasn’t quite expecting to be kicked out. At this point I should have shit pre-packed though, it’s happening way too fucking often, and-”

“Jegus fuck, I still have some of my pre-molt pyjamas and clothes that might fit you,” you interrupt, in an attempt to stop him from rambling into oblivion like he does at school.

“Oh,” he replies, like he was expecting you to tell him to deal with only having the one set of clothes, “Okay, uh, cool.”

You walk over to your respite block, still holding Dave’s hand, and pull out some of your pre-molt pyjamas for Dave. He gives you a quiet thanks, and lets go of your hand.

You grab your own pyjamas, and since you are actually extremely tired and have embarrassed yourself completely at this point, you immediately get changed. Sure, your back was turned to Dave, but you still got completely changed.

You lie down on your respite platform, you’ve long abandoned the concupiscent part since nothing concupiscent happens on it, and leave enough room for Dave to lie down next to you if he wants. You close your eyes, and hear the shuffling of fabric, a few footsteps, and finally both hear and feel an extra weight on the respite platform.

You have no idea when Dave falls asleep, or if he falls asleep, all you know is that your brain isn’t letting you sleep.

Dave kissed you, but also offered pale comfort. Does he want to mish-mash the quadrants with you? Or does he just see you as a charity case? 

And why was he kicked out of his hive?

…

It feels like you just blink, and suddenly there’s light coming through your window, and Dave’s arms are around you. It’s still raining, and yet this rain sounds lighter, and comforting. You close your eyes, and tentatively move an arm on to Dave. He shifts slightly, but otherwise doesn’t move.

You could stay like this forever.

“Karkat,” Dave says after a while. His voice is cute when he’s sleepy. “Come on Karkat, can’t sleep all day.”

“Why not,” you whine. You don’t want to get up. You don’t want him to leave.

“Because it’s not healthy or something, I dunno, Rose tells me it’s bad.”

Who’s Rose? Is she Dave’s girlfriend or something? Probably. God, of course he has a girlfriend, what the fuck were you thinking about Dave possibly liking you.

You get up off you respite platform, trying to show how fucking stupid you feel. 

“Alright, I’ll make breakfast,” you end up mumbling. You didn’t mean to mumble it, but you did.

You walk out of your respite block and into the main living room, immediately looking over to your couch to check on your lusus. You forgot he died last night. You don’t notice you’re crying until there’s a hand on your shoulder.

You quickly wipe away your tears, no need to look so pathetic, and go to the kitchen to cook scrambled roaches and grasshoppers. It’s a simple recipe, one you can’t fuck up, not even on your worst day. It might not be what Dave likes, but fuck it, you’d rather be gross than pathetic.

By the time you’re done making breakfast, Dave is sitting at the mealblock table, scowling at his phone. He’s still wearing your pre-molt clothes, and you can’t help but blush at that. He’s also wearing his shades, though you’re not sure where he put them last night.

You place one plate of food in front of him, and one plate at your spot. He looks up at you with confusion.

“Is this for me?” He asks as he sets down his phone. God, he thinks you’re so rude that you wouldn’t serve him breakfast?

“Uh, yeah,” you reply, regretting more and more not jumping off that bridge sooner.

“Fuck, thanks,” dave tells you as he eagerly digs into his food.

He eats a fuckton faster than you do. You wonder if it has anything to do with getting kicked out of his hive. You wonder why Rose didn’t help.

“Who were you texting?” You ask, since Dave has finished eating and you don’t want things to be awkward.

“Rose,” he says, “she’s trying to flirt with this girl at her school but she’s overthinking it way too fucking much. Like, this morning Rose decided it would be a good idea to make breakfast for her, despite the fact that they live in different buildings. And the thing is, this girl is totally flirting back and Rose can’t fucking see it. And she says I’m obtuse.”

Okay, so Dave isn’t dating Rose? Or it’s an open relationship? Or maybe they’re im a quadrant and Rose is filling her empty ones. Maybe they’re kismesees. Or maybe they’re violent moirails. Moirails actually makes more sense.

“So is she like your moirail or…?” You leave the question open ended, you don’t want him to flip out, you really don’t want him to be quadranted with Rose-

“What? No,” he says. Thank fuck. “Rose is my sister. She lives way up north with our mom. And sure we help each other but we also sabotage each other’s psyches.” He clearly has more to say, but instead he fidgets with his hands.

“Oh,” is all you can say in response to that. It’s a pathetic response. You’re a fucking idiot.

“Are you, uh, do you, fuck, um, is there anyone in, uh, in your quadrants?” 

“No,” you say as you finish up your food, “if there was, I wouldn’t have tried to jump off that bridge.”

He goes stiff at that, completely still as you grab his plate to put in the sink. 

“Please don’t try again,” Dave whispers, his voice filled with fear.

You set the plates in the sink and look at him. His shades are still on, but his whole body is tense, and his hands twitch against the table.

“Why not?” You ask, a terrible question, you don’t want to know what he thinks of you.

Abruptly, Dave stands up, marches over to where you’re standing and puts his hands on your shoulders as he speaks.

“Because I fucking love you and I don’t know what the fuck I’d do if you fucking died!”

You sand there, stunned, and honestly aren’t sure what to say. You become even less sure of what to say once Dave starts crying and rests his head on your chest. Awkwardly, you put a hand on his back, attempting to rub him soothingly like you would your moirail.

“Look,” he starts again, voice wavering with tears, “I get it, if you don’t like me, I get it if you don’t want to date me in any sense or even be near me, but if I knew that you were dead, I, fuck that would break me.”

You can’t saying anything. Your throat feels like it’s clogged, and you’re surprised that you can still breath.

“Please say something,” Dave quietly pleads.

“What am I supposed to say?” You manage to choke out.

“The truth, preferably, and if you hate me or not.”

“I don’t fucking hate you!” You almost shout as you squeeze him in your arms. Tears spill out of your eyes, and you have no intention of stopping them.

“Thank fuck,” he mumbles as he moves his arms from your shoulders to hug you around your waist.

“I’m just not sure how to react to my fucking crush saving my life, kiss me, say he loves me, and help me with the emotional aftermath of my fucking lusus’s death.”

Fuck, you just said that, you just admitted you have a crush on him, why did you do that why did you do that why did you do that-

“You have acrush on me?” He asks

“Yeah,” you barely manage to say.

“Which uh, which quadrant?”

“All of them...”

“So, uh, so you’ll date me?”

“Yeah, fuck yeah I will.”

Clumsily, he moves his arms from your waist to around your neck, pulling you down for a kiss. This time, like a sensible person, you kiss him back.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more don’t worry


End file.
